Things you can learn from the s5.1 Breaking Bad dvds
...which I dipped in in order to prepar for the rest of the season in five days.
1.) The scene at the end of 5.02., with Walt sliding into bed with Skyler, was originally even creepier and grosser. ( Spoilery explanation as to how ensues. )
1.) The scene at the end of 5.02., with Walt sliding into bed with Skyler, was originally even creepier and grosser. ( Spoilery explanation as to how ensues. )
My favourite deleted scene on the S5 DVD was Walt telling Jesse and Todd about all the most famous train robberies and imagining that their robbery will be the greatest so far. Walt's mission now is to become legendary before he dies and that scene was a great example of Walt's new mentality. I wish they could have kept it in.
Did you watch the 'Chicks & Guns' scene? I'd be interested to know your thoughts on that one. As for Jesse, I think it's true that Jesse has a conscience and Jesse is carrying around a huge weight of guilt and trauma that Walt just doesn't feel anymore. But I don't think Jesse can be called the moral hero of the show because Jesse doesn't do anything proactive to protect innocents, combat evil or bring about justice (the only truly heroic deed I can credit Jesse with is rescuing that little boy from the Spooges house). In fact Jesse has spent most of the series aiding and enabling Walt to do terrible things. Jesse may feel remorse for what they have done, but that doesn't do anything to make amends or put things right. If Jesse feels true remorse over the murder of that boy on the bike, then the best thing Jesse could do is go to the police, turn himself in and inform on Todd, Lydia and Walt too. The kid's poor parents don't even know for sure that their son is dead yet. If Jesse came forward and confessed he would at least give them closure and allow them a chance to properly mourn. I'm thinking of Nate after Lisa went missing in SFU now. I can't think of anything worse than that agony of a loved one disappearing and you having no idea what happened to them. (especially if it's your child, GOD). So yes, until I see Jesse willing to step up and take a 'full measure' to make amends I wouldn't call him the moral hero. Hank by his very profession has always been committed to justice and protecting the community and when Hank has done wrong (beating up Jesse) he has manned up and confessed to it.
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At least until 51, yes. Her "I'm waiting for the cancer to come back" may have psychologically impossible for him to, depending on whether you think Walt's need for sexual release and/or to dominate/punish Skyler trumps his need to see himself as a loving husband and father who is deeply misunderstood.
Chicks & Guns scene: I was thinking about our dialogue re: male ganster fantasies! Also that the scene was very efficient in giving the stripper, Cristal (of course that's her name), a personality (her impatience with the guys being unable to finish the carpe diem quote, her exchange with Saul re: her kids) so that while for the guys she wasn't a person, she was a fantasy, that wasn't true for the narrative. Re: Saul giving Jesse the gun and warning him of Walt (and also the implication that if Walt has killed "Mike's guys" regardless of Mike, this probably means nothing good regarding Mike's continued existence), it's arguably the first non-selfish thing we see Saul do. And I could buy Jesse believing it despite his initial protest because the entirety of 5a has shown him realising how very scary Walt has become.
If Jesse came forward and confessed he would at least give them closure and allow them a chance to properly mourn. I'm thinking of Nate after Lisa went missing in SFU now. I can't think of anything worse than that agony of a loved one disappearing and you having no idea what happened to them. (especially if it's your child, GOD).
Very true. And I think the show is aware of this; given Lydia's reaction when Mike shows up to kill her, and she tells him she'd rather her daughter traumatized by finding her body than being traumatized by never knowing what happened and never knowing whether her mother is dead or alive, left her deliberately or was taken etc.
Hank by his very profession has always been committed to justice and protecting the community and when Hank has done wrong (beating up Jesse) he has manned up and confessed to it.
I had appreciate Hank's intelligence and detective skills beneath the bluff exterior before, but that was the point when I really respected him. Especially because he didn't do so because he suddenly thought Jesse was innocent. But because he knew that beating up a man is wrong, including criminals; that this is especially not what you do if you swore to uphold the law. In this day and age, when torture has been made legal in the US by the goverment, this was important to see and hear both on a Watsonian level (for Hank as a character) and on a Doylist one.
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I think there's a few other times that Saul's gone beyond the call of duty, like, hiding Jesse in the laser maze and not giving him up to Mike who was threatening to break Saul's legs. On the one hand, I think Saul is a good lawyer in the sense that he wants to prove to his clients that he looks out for them and he's someone they can trust. But I wonder if Saul does have a genuine soft spot for Jesse. Or perhaps Saul feels guilty because he helped with the ricin cigarette & Brock poisoning manipulation that Walt pulled on Jesse.
she'd rather her daughter traumatized by finding her body than being traumatized by never knowing what happened and never knowing whether her mother is dead or alive, left her deliberately or was taken etc
Wow, that's a great connection. I hadn't thought of that. It is also reflected in Mike's fate when he just disappears from his granddaughter's life and she'll probably grow up thinking he just abandoned her in the park.
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